The Education Business Blog

Quote of the Week - Publishing Edition

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:43:23 -0600

In discussing the potential for ads in e-books - the latest hail mary pass of traditional media - Paul Carr at TechCrunch dropped this gem:

It’s a compelling argument, but like so many compelling arguments made about the future of books, it’s also hampered by consisting almost entirely of bullshit.

He then goes on to rend the idea to tiny shreds. Its an enjoyable read because he brings common sense and an attitude to area rife with guessing and angst.

Its also a pretty good disclaimer for readers of this site....

Scribd - New Channel or High-Tech Protection Racket?

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:45:52 -0600

Scribd is working hard to be the text version of YouTube. Upload some text, tag it, and let the world discover it. It isn't just unpublished novels - many copyrighted textbooks are already there via unauthorized uploads.

Like YouTube, users can upload anything and the site isn't under any legal obligation to screen for copyright protection. Copyright holders have to proactively scan and search for their content. Get it taken down today - it can be uploaded again tomorrow morning.

For example, Key Curriculum Press's "Discovering Advanced Algebra" is available for anyone to download all 888 pages for free (and has been since last August when it was posted by "skihe63"). It has been accessed 8,898 times since it was loaded less than a year ago. It is an older copyright, but still - on Amazon it sells for $25. That is $222k in value.

This isn't just Key Curriculum Press's (fixed) problem - they are algebra texts from McGraw-Hill, University of Chicago Press, and many other publishers a click away.

"Gee - nice copyright you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it."

What are Key Curriculum's (fixed) options? They should submit a report to Scribd to remove the illegal copy (and hopefully they will - edit THEY DID). But that just solves it for this one instance - today.

The only way to get Scribd to protect your copyright is to cut them in on the action. Upload your content, and let users download the PDF for a fee which you share with Scribd. Then, and only then, will they screen for unauthorized copies.

So publishers are starting to up load their own content and cut Scribd in on the action - protection money if you will.

While Scribd has the Milleneum Copyright Act law on their side it sure feels like they are doing something immoral. Once they are on notice about a copyrighted material they should be obligated to screen for it. Key Curriculum's (fixed) unambiguous notice is right on page 3 and it explicitly prohibits reproducing it, storing it, or transmitting it without permission.

How it Should Work

Technically, scanning text for a copyright notice is a trivial exercise. If TripIt can decode 95% of the confirmation emails I get from a wide variety of travel providers this is child's play.

You would think that if Scribd wants publishers to be allies that they would scan for copyright notices and require up-loaders to explicitly acknowledge by publisher name that they have authorization (not some dense generic mealy mouthed legalese that is deliberately designed to be ignored). A dialog like "We detected that Key Curriculum Press holds a 2004 copyright on these materials - click here to acknowledge that you have the publishers written permission to transmit these materials to our servers. Violations of copyright law can expose you to personal liability."

Hell - they could go a step further and provide a link to request permission from the named publisher.

But don't hold your breath on Scribd doing the right thing on this score - there is money to be made in playing it fast and loose with other people's property.

Conflicting Values

We know from market after market that increased exposure grows the market - but it often does so in ways that are highly disruptive to existing distribution mechanisms. The music business isn't hurting right now - music publishers are. Movie attendance went UP after HBO went on-line in the early '80's.

The trick for publishers is to figure out how to surf this transition and to see opportunities in challenges. If we reflexively try to fight folks who are playing too cute with our property but who have the law on their side we are going to lose.

As a netizen I find my value for free and open access to information is coming into direct conflict with my publishing hat. I want the hard work put in by the writers, editors, designers, instructional designers and others involved in the creation of our intellectual property to be able to continue providing high value.

There are no easy answers - we will have to hire people to monitor this new world for us and our web marketing teams need to figure out how to align with sites like Scribd rather than fight them.

---------------------
Hat tip to Tim McHugh at Saddleback for sharing their approach and thoughts on this topic with me.

Note: I mistakenly attributed the Algebra title in the piece originally to Pearson's Modern Curriculum Press - I knew better and the good folks at Key Curriculum Press were good natured about it. The references have been fixed.

Open Source Textbooks - We Do The Math

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:40:36 -0600

Last week the New York Times published a piece titled $200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math by Ashlee Vance.

Today we take up the challenge posed in the title and demonstrate that Open Source Textbooks are twice as expensive as books in the K12 market.

Let me state right up front that I'm all for using economic and technology forces to drive costs down while improving services. I agree that Open Source instructional materials have a place and will play a role in coming years in doing exactly this. But they are not the panacea painted by their advocates in the article.

Mr. Vance's normal beat is Silicon Valley, so it comes as no big surprise that the article is largely a big wet kiss to Sun co-founder Scott McNealy's publicist. Mr. McNealy rightfully gets props for his sustained commitment to Curriki which has built important infrastructure and tackled thorny questions about user generated lesson plans. But this article goes far beyond that effort in painting a misleading picture of what open source means for schools.

Worse, Mr. Vance's lack of expertise in education led him to make three additional fundamental and common mistakes in how he presented the facts and interpreted them. Lets start with those and then proceed to the "math."

The foundational errors are:

K12 does not equal Higher Education
Cutting textbook costs will not make a material difference to education reform
Recreating the book experience on-line is not sound instruction
Open Source technology is more expensive than books in education (today)

First Error - K12 does not equal Higher Education

These are two distinct markets with unique competitive and customer dynamics.

Evidence? The companies that serve them have completely different K12 and Higher Ed sales forces, marketing departments, and development teams. If there were synergies beyond buying paper and press time in bulk they would be taking advantage of them.

In Higher Education the books are chosen by individual Professors and purchased by the students. This results in very narrow niches and resulting exorbitant costs that the end buyer has little or no negotiating power to counter. When a Biology Professor is one of 6 educators requiring his own book you end up with the $200 books referenced in the title.

By comparison K12 is a bulk institutional purchase where the textbook decision is made at the State or District level. The buyers have huge bargaining power which they have instantiated in legislation and regulations around the adoption and purchase of instructional materials. The typical K12 textbook costs $35-$60 and is used for 4-5 years at a cost of $7-$12 per student.

So which is it $200 or $12? It isn't even close and I haven't gotten beyond the first word of the title.

Second Error - Cutting textbook costs will not make a material difference to education reform

I'm all for using the market and new technologies to save money and improve learning. But textbooks are such small potatoes in the overall education budget that it is laughable to think that even if you could magically eliminate this cost (which we will show you can't) that it would make much of a difference.

We spend $550 billion a year on education in the United States. K12 instructional Materials are 1% of that cost. Completely eliminate it and you have barely moved the needle.

Yes $5 billion is a lot of money - but in the context of of the whole it is insignificant.

Thus the whole premise of the piece - that a noble retired entrepreneur is leading the charge to fix education as we know it is silly. These efforts will, at best, nibble at one small corner of the overall challenge. Love him or hate him at least Bill Gates is tackling the real problems head on and at scale.

Third Error - Recreating the book experience on-line is not sound instruction

This error is perhaps the most fundamental of all and one I would have expected a veteran technology reporter to pick up on. Textbooks companies have in fact spent the last 20 years trying to recreate the book experience on-line. The results have been universally disappointing and are the equivalent of reading plays on TV. It is neither interesting or a good use of technology platforms.

Technology at its best allows us to do things in a new and more productive ways. For this to happen the experience needs to be redesigned and reengineered from a technical and cultural standpoint. This is why most technology diffusion takes 25 years despite the accelerating curve of innovation we find ourselves on.

The good news is that we are at 25 years of PCs in education and change is a brewin'. The bad news is that posting PDFs of textbooks isn't where the market is headed.

Where this really hurts the argument being made in the article is that doing new stuff in innovative ways can be expensive. If we replace textbooks with compelling on-line simulations and games designed for classroom use (my vote for the best use of technology in education) look to the budgets of game developers to get a sense of the scale economics that will be required to support this effort.

Innovation yes. Retreaded open source PDFs as the answer - feh. Been there, done that, didn't work very well.

Follow the Money

This is always good advice when you find arguments being made that don't stand up to scrutiny. In this case you don't have to look any further than the screen you are staring at right now. The hardware vendors are the ones who have been pimping the idea of "free" content on the web as the solution to schools problems coming on 10 years now.

Sun was a hardware vendor at heart that wrote software to move iron (e.g. Java). Apple has been instrumental in changing the adoption requirement in Texas that allows adoption money to be used for digital products. Their end game is allowing adoption money to be spent on their equipment (e.g. iPad).

This. Is. Their. Idea. Of. "Free."

Equity

But "the computers are already there you say - this would be leveraging existing infrastructure to trim costs." Wrong. The first error conflating K12 with Higher Ed ignores a fundamental difference between the two markets. Higher Education is a choice - and included in that choice is the student's responsibility to provide their own technology. K12 Education is legal requirement and the state is required to provide all the necessary resources in an equitable manner to ALL students.

Read that last sentence twice and never forget it. Unless EVERY student has access to the platform the state has what is called an equity issue. The fact that 4-5 computers may be present in the classroom doesn't mean that all students can access it - much less access it at home when they are doing their homework and using their textbooks.

In Higher Education the standard is much different. A company like Flat Earth Knowledge can offer their solution knowing that it is the student's budget that determines if they can afford a computer on which to run the "free" book.

Infrastructure Requirements

So to do the math on moving to open source digital textbooks one has to calculate the costs based on providing every student with a reader device that they can use on their own time. That device needs to handle the complex color charts and images contained in instructional content and ideally should be able to run simulations and other complex software that allows students to explore and play with ideas rather than passively absorb them. The screen needs to be large enough that students can read it without squinting since - hopefully - they will be staring at it for several hours a day.

In other words it needs to be an iPad or Android tablet. Dell's Streak starts at $300 and the iPad at $499. Both include a monthly subscription that runs to around $125-$160 a year. Given how hard kids are on technology (puddles, playground tussles, etc.) you will also need a service contract at roughly $40 a year.

In Which We Do "The Math"

If the device lasts 3 years your annual cost at the low end is $265 per year. A bulk purchaser might be able to negotiate something closer to $200 per year - but not much less than that given that the margins on the devices are already razor thin. At the mid-range it could go as high as $400 a year.

I'm being gracious and not including the cost of the networks and IT staff needed support this kind of enterprise wide implementation of a platform. Since instruction is the core mission of the schools the bulk of that cost should rightfully be allocated to this effort.

At last we arrive back at the original promise of the article. What does it cost to provide a student with textbooks? At the HIGH end for 5 classes it is $58 a year. If we throw in some supplemental materials we get to a cost of $100 per student per year. Or almost exactly the $5 billion+ that is spent in K12 on instructional materials (54 million students).

So back at ya Mr. Vance - $10 billion a year for technology or $5 billion a year for books - You Do The Math.

The Cost Curve

There is already a significant base of technology in schools - but it tends to be more in the supplemental side of things not in the basal instructional resource area that includes Textbooks. This is because of the equity issue.

To get some sense today of what it costs to implement a basal instructional technology program look at Scholastic's hugely successful Read 180. One actual proposal has the cost at $783 per student. This is for the digital/print instructional materials only and does not include an inch of network or a single keyboard.

We will ride the cost curve down and at some point - in the future - the benefits associated with the migration to the new technology will be justified for core instructional materials. It probably won't even be when it is less expensive. If technological delivery truly delivers more effective instruction it can be justified at a higher cost (see Read 180 above).

But I think it is clear we are not there yet for the broad mass of students and teachers. We should be experimenting with this today and building the tools and resources to take advantage of it when we get there. Again - kudos to Mr. McNealy for his sustained efforts on Curriki in this regard.

Summary

The New York Times has utterly failed in its mission to inform the discussion of this issue by presenting the grossly misleading promises of the open source movement. What the advocates of this move are really pushing for is a transfer of the costs from books to a much more expensive platform.

I'm not an apologist for the textbook industry. I've spent over 20 years as a vocal and public advocate for technology innovation in education (here and here). But we do students and educators a disservice when we don't provide them with a full set of facts to make decisions with. The open source debate is loaded with hidden agendas that the article did not touch on but which have a direct bearing on it's central claim that this movement will save schools money today.

Thanks DC!

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:54:14 -0600

Congress finally passed some support for state budgets to make sure there are enough teachers as school opens.

Kind of "yay." We accomplished this by planning to cut food stamps starting in 2014.

This comic succinctly captures the essence of our national experience since the summer of 2007 when all this kicked into gear. (ht balloon-juice)

Want to bet she is a teacher?

Don't miss the warning label.

Cheers!

Game Mechanics Can Power Your Instructional Materials

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:50:15 -0600

Richard Carey points to an outstanding article by Shane Snow on using game mechanics to power your business over at Mashable.

This rings true in my personal use of social media (see here re Foursquare) as well as in a lot of the thinking that has gone into what will happen to learning materials as they migrate from print to digital.

The one thing missing from the article that I think is a critical element is narrative thread. Here are some comments of on how that applies to education.

Go read Shane's article - you will learn something. Then friend me on Foursquare. You will be pwn'd.

Subvert the Dominant Paradigm

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:00:49 -0600

This is creative thinking at work. How do you arrest someone for cleaning a tunnel - even if it looks like graffiti? I imagine the call to Police HQ was pretty amusing and resulted in a lot of head scratching.

It often takes explicit subversion of our preconceptions to reveal our unspoken assumptions about every day life.

Two questions for EBB readers:

Does making someone smile at delicious irony improve retention of the instructional objective?

If so - how can we use non-traditional means to culture jam students into a higher awareness of the world around them?

HT to zeFrank

ISTE 2010: Wile E. Coyote Moment?

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:27:22 -0600

Guest blogger Mike Baum of Sophia Consulting shares his insights on ISTE 2010.

By Mike Baum

In the old Road Runner cartoons, there’s always a point where the slavering coyote, relentlessly and enthusiastically pursuing his dinner, runs off a cliff. But he hangs in mid-air momentarily, falling only when he realizes there’s no longer anything supporting his feet. Walking the floor of ISTE (nee NECC) last week, I thought I heard “beep beep” from time to time.

On the surface it was a very good show. Attendance down a couple thousand from last year, but you expect Denver to draw smaller crowds than D.C. About 200 fewer exhibitors but that’s par for the course right now – and still one of education’s biggest show floors. No one I talked to missed the Elvis impersonator from 2009, either.

Attendees had money to spend. Visitors to the booth of one of my clients often opened the conversation with needs for fall, grants they expected, budgets they still had to allocate. That’s one of the things that make ISTE today such a must-attend for technology companies – unlike a few years ago, a high percentage of attendees are really shopping. And they’re looking for educational solutions, not just gadgets or wiring.

If there was a “buzz” at this show it might be “the year of mobile.” Vendors, sessions, and corridor conversations focused on ways to use iPods, iPads, phones, and even older tech like netbooks, to put applications in kids’ hands more quickly, more interactively, at lower cost. Software vendors are being challenged to make their content run on just any platform teachers have or want to use. The “21st Century Classroom” – all interactive, all the time – fits this paradigm just fine and was also all over the show, with whiteboards, projectors, panels, and student responders, which have proliferated like crocuses in springtime.

All very good, and a genuine trend – but how far can tech buyers run with it before they realize they’ve run out of cliff? ARRA money will only go so far. At her presentation on the future of federal funding, ISTE lobbyist Hilary Goldmann put a brave face on it but had to admit that this time, E2T2 may really be dead. While it could be 2011 or 2012 before our contentious Congress finally agrees on a new ESEA, dedicated tech funding has fewer and fewer defenders. ISTE is trying again to get momentum behind the ATTAIN Act (Achievement Through Technology and Innovation) but the current administration seems focused on other priorities, and the public mood is starting to swing against finding new things to spend money on.

And state budgets will keep reeling for some time from the effects of unemployment and housing-price declines. My airplane reading right now includes the weighty and depressing This Time is Different by economists Reinhart and Rogoff (the title is intentionally ironic). Their historical data indicate that it takes five and six years respectively for jobs and housing to start recovering from major financial calamities. Figuring from 2007 or 2008, take your pick, at that rate it will be 2012 or 2013 before we see improvements, and there’s always a time lag before state tax collections and disbursements reflect the economy. A couple weeks ago I was interviewing the tech director of one of our large urban districts and asked his opinion about the funding outlook. “Things won’t improve till about 2015,” he replied. At the time I thought he was a pessimist. Now I think maybe he’s a prophet.

So should tech companies just go into hibernation for the next five years? Not necessarily. Maybe it will be a good thing to have tech funding merged with school-improvement and professional development initiatives. It could keep us focused on why we’re all in this business in the first place.

Recession or recovery, this country will go on spending about half a trillion dollars on K-12 schools per year. If schools are going to spend some of that money on handhelds or clickers or anything else, it will be because they produce results when teachers really know how to use them effectively. If administrators are ever going to get less twitchy about letting kids use as mobile educational devices the cellphones two-thirds of them now carry (the figure rises to 70-85% when you get past age 11), it will because the educational uses are plain, proven, and easily implementable by teachers who mostly aren’t techies.

Among the educators walking the mile-high floors at ISTE, I saw a lot of principals and other non-tech people looking for solutions. Not “solutions” in the tech sense – solutions to problems with educational achievement. Are we providing the research, the real-classroom models, the teacher training they need? And are we making it plain to them how it works for them? If not, the Road Runner of technology growth in society may just keep streaking along ahead of us while we look around and find the ground under our feet has disappeared.

Mike Baum
Principal
Sophia Consulting LLC
mhbaum (at) gmail

Mike’s education blog:
http://mhbaumk12.wordpress.com/

Cyberbullying and Schools Must Read

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:37:13 -0600

On-line bullying has been a concern as long as the web has been around. Yet only now, with the proliferation of social networks, is it really getting its due. Today's New York Times has an outstanding article on cyberbullying and the confusing and inconsistent ways that schools are being asked to respond. I highly recommend this well written piece.

The central conundrum is that cyberbullying almost never takes place on school sponsored networks and equipment. Yet the bullying clearly has a direct impact on students, their interactions in the building, and their academic performance.

In old fashioned bullying physical presence was required. Because kids spent most of their day at school a great deal of it happened in the building. That gave schools a clear and well defined role in intervening and managing bullying - even if many didn't do a great job of it. At least the law and the expectations were clear.

From a school's perspective the rules for when and how to intervene in off-campus cyberbullying are unclear.

Further complicating matters is that the students themselves are developmentally at an age when they are experimenting with social interactions and often unaware of the consequences of their actions. The real goal should be educational, not punitive, so that as they mature they learn to manage these tools well.

Take it Kurt:

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Implications for Publishers

When I interviewed teachers for the Best Practices in Implementing Video Games & Simulations in the Classroom white paper a couple of years ago they all told us that they had not experienced any bullying problems with software provided by the school. Most of the time the bullying takes place after hours and on equipment and networks that the school doesn't own.

So for publishers the good news is that if you build a system that schools will deploy this isn't likely to be a major issue. You should be ready to address it with research and a solid suite of administrative tools.

If you are encouraging kids to use external social networks and resources you may have think twice about how you introduce them and whether it would be possible to do on school sponsored sites like Nettrekker.

A Broken Senate Fails America's Children

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 08:09:28 -0600

Yesterday the minority in the Senate ended the chances that the Extender's Bill would pass the Senate. While 57 Senators - a clear majority - wanted to do the right thing a determined minority used procedural votes to force mass layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police across the country (300,000-500,000).

There are rumors that the two sides are still talking - but most analysts say that any action will likely take place after the Summer Recess in mid-Fall.

It isn't just education that is affected. Over a million people will be dropped from unemployment rolls. As a side benefit Hedge Fund Managers get to keep paying taxes on their multi-million dollar bonuses at a rate (15%) lower than most of the formerly employed teachers and cops (25%).

There is no way this is good news for the economy - none.

They may blather about other stuff - but that is the real effect of yesterday's vote. Don't forget that.

States and Local Governments (SLG) are facing $300 billion in budget shortfalls this coming year. Unlike the Federal Government they can not run deficits. They pay their bills or they go bankrupt (which cities like San Diego are actively considering). The only solutions to this problem is a Keynesian infusion of support from the Feds or mass layoffs and drastic spending cuts.

Keep in mind that 80% of education spending is for staff. The only way to address a significant shortfall in school budgets is to lay off lots and lots of teachers. Schools will cut the other stuff - but there is only so much they can do with that other 20%.

The impact on education will be long term and devastating. The children in the system now will bear the brunt of these cuts in the form of increased class sizes, shortened school hours, and over burdened teachers. This is the choice that was made in the Senate yesterday.

In crisis management mode simply keeping the lights on will be the priority - not reform. We'll continue to hear lots of bombast about global competitiveness, but when an entire state (HI) is considering a 4 day school week that rings a little hollow. If schools are facing a choice between laying off even more teachers or delaying materials purchases another year or two that is an easy choice from their perspective.

The political calculus appears to be aimed at the elections in November. I guess the theory is that if the economy is wrecked even further than it already is then the minority party will benefit from voter unhappiness. Sadly, as political bets go it will probably work.

I know. to many of you this is a harsh indictment. Given the history I don't see any other conclusion. Lets take a look at the two primary reasons given for voting against the bill.

"It wasn't bipartisan"

Hard work and real compromises went into crafting something the minority could support. The original $200 billion deficit financed proposal was cut in half to $110 billion, and to ally concerns of the minority only $30 billion of that was deficit financed. No one denies there is a crisis, there just appears to be one party determined to do nothing about it even when they are included.

We can't forget that a solid majority of 57 supported the bill. It is only the procedural votes - which are not Constitutionally defined - that require super majorities. If you want to see where requirements for super majorities on budget issues will take us just look to California. Feel better?

When this post on bipartisanship in the current political climate was written in February I thought it was over the top:

Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

In the wake of this vote the analogy is eerily prescient.

"OMFG The Deficit!"

Yes the deficit is a concern. But it has been a concern for 30 years and according to most credible economists we are not in any danger there. If we were in danger the bond markets would be sending a clear signal - they are not.

I have a hard time with lectures about fiscal responsibility from the folks who supported $1 trillion in off the books deficit financed wars. Or $700 billion in TARP money for the Wall Street. Or the Airline bailout after 9/11. Yet when it comes to $30 billion in deficits to support teachers and kids it is "the end of America as we know it." Sigh.

What these clowns should understand (and probably do) is that State and Local Government funding lags the general economy by 3 years. It takes this long for economic swings to be reflected in tax receipts and budgets - particularly property taxes which fund a huge amount of education spending.

That means that we are just entering the worst phase of the recession from local government's perspective. While the general economy may be picking up - SLG needs the ongoing support of the Feds for a year or two more.

Where to from here?

July will tell the tale for school budgets. Normally it is our busiest month of the year. We will see if it signals a pullback to keep what funds schools do have in reserve while States sort out funding priorities in the crisis. That will take some time, meanwhile all our business could suffer.

Is it the end of the world? No - billions will still be spent on education. But decisions will take longer, new initiatives will be fewer and farther between, and genuine reform will be put off for another day. Marginal suppliers will go under, others will have to scale back and hold on. The learning opportunities of a generation will suffer.

As an industry we should not forget this vote. It directly affects our customers in an extraordinarily negative way and it does so for pure political gain. There is no argument that can be sustained about good governance in opposing this bill.

Note: The opinions expressed here are my own.

Just Saying...

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:11:28 -0600

That's Mr. Mayor to you. For those of you who are not familiar this is foursquare.

From their site:

Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things.

I've been "playing" foursquare for the past week and it is fun. I like the game like aspect of it - but unless the network affect kicks in relatively soon I can see that it will be a passing fancy - just like the other casual games that slip through my fingers. If a large number of my acquaintances end up in here then it will be fun to see where people are to and connect when we are close.

That and lording it over people in my new mayorial capacity....

How could this translate to education?

How about something that isn't location based but is content based. I could "log in" to reading a particular book and watch the comment stream of others who are reading it too - or a movie - or anything I might chose to do with one of my mobile devices. In real time.

It would also be cool - imagine a kid claiming to be the Mayor of Moby Dick.

But Lee (you say) - this combination of kids and location/content based services seems ripe for bullying and or creeps.
If the service is school authenticated via the SIS then security issues can be mitigated for students. In my conversations with teachers they don't typically have cyber bullying or other problems with school sponsored systems. Their woes are from external systems - Facebook et al.

School authentication could allow global learning communities that have some layer of protection that schools should be providing.

If this app already exists (entirely possible) please let us know in comments.

Common Core Standards & Education Publishers

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:49:42 -0600

Common Core Standards (CCS) will have a profound impact on the instructional materials market. The big players like Pearson and McGraw-Hill are on-board as endorsing partners, but smaller supplemental publishers have as much (if not more) to gain if the initiative is successful.

Common standards will reduce structural barriers to entry, reduce costs (and hopefully prices), and make it easier for new players to enter the textbook market. They also make it easier for open source publishing and have the potential to stall the market during implementation.

In this post I am not going to wade into the politics of whether Common Core Standards are good or evil. My goal is to look at this from the potential economic impact on the companies that serve the education market.

Publishing companies will have a major role in the CCS plays out. As the initiative's web site states:

"Standards are not curriculum...The curriculum that follows will continue to be a local responsibility (or state-led, where appropriate). The curriculum could become more consistent from state to state based on the commonality of the standards; however, there are multiple ways to teach these standards, and therefore, there will be multiple approaches that could help students accomplish the goals set out in the standards."

It is also important to note that the CCS only covers Reading Language Arts and Math for now. Since these two subjects account for over 70% of the market from a publisher's standpoint CCS will drive the market. If the RLA and Math standards are successful we can expect the other subject areas to follow in short order anyway.

State of the Market Today

"The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from."

Andy Tanenbaum - Computer Scientist

It helps to understand the impact of separate state standards on education publishing as it exists to see why there are compelling reasons to support this effort.

We'll look first at Adoptions and then at Supplemental materials.

1. Competitive Framework: Adoptions have very high upfront fixed costs and a zero sum competition on the back end.

The whole market structure sets up extraordinarily high barriers to entry. You need the capital to develop and sample a program, the staff to reach every district in a state, and a deep backlist to draw FWO materials from.

It can cost $30-$40 million to develop a submission for TX or CA (with rumors of some at $125 million+). Once the materials are developed companies then compete for state endorsement which can take up to a year. If you make the cut publisher then go district by district to win the actual business. All along they are sampling like crazy and flying fleets of people around to present and schmooze.
Budgets are fixed ($35-$75 per student on average) and until very recently the money could only be spent on books, so price competition is low. The textbooks are all developed to the same scope and sequence - meaning they are essentially identical commodities (yeah - a bunch of editorial folks are going to have my scalp for that one).

For a competitive edge publishers sweeten the deal with Free With Order (FWO) materials - software, supplemental texts, test prep, on-line versions etc. With high sunk costs publishers are eager to close as much of the business as they can and the incentives all point towards competing to a marginal profit of zero.

This may sound like a good deal for the schools - but having followed this for some time there are three big downsides many schools don't think about. First - most of this FWO stuff is not top quality. If publishers could charge for it they would. Second - it can make up to 60%-70% of the materials you receive - it will consume your time to figure out what it all is. Third - as a result it goes into a closet and never sees the light of day again. Storage is costly.

Caveat - there are some wonderful materials provided FWO - I'm speaking on average here (ok Editorial - put down the pitchforks and back away slowly...).

2. Writing to state standards favors three very large adoption states - everyone else lives in their world.

Many of the objections to the CCS are around the centralization of decision making. This ignores the reality of the market and the fact that right now 47 states have limited say in the matter.

California, Texas, and Florida dominate the adoption market. Given the high cost of building a program other states get adaptations of the CA/TX/FL books (and yes - there are plenty of exceptions to this rule).

Any text that doesn't address a state's standards fails on the first sales call. The big states use this as power to shape what gets written and how it is organized. Witness the recent dust up in Texas about pulling Thomas Jefferson out of the history standards. California uses its Legal and Social Compliance Review to shape not just what gets published - but how it is presented.

With both California and Florida on the sidelines because of the economic crisis Texas has the field to itself right now. BUT - since Texas exceptionalism led them to sit out the CCS initiative their relative power may be very limited. A consortium of 5-6 mid-size states would trump Texas' market footprint in the eyes of publishers.

3. Supplemental and intervention materials are already written for national audiences - but accommodating competing standards creates mush.

No state is large enough to sustain a focused development effort for supplemental materials. These resources are written for subsets of the larger student population. Publishers usually pull the standards for the big states (see above) and some of the national associations (NCTM e.g.) and write to this mashup. It isn't efficient, it can lead to odd sequencing, and no one gets exactly what they want.

Publishers also end up absorbing the high cost of correlations to individual state standards after the fact. This ends up in pricing. In many of the smaller states publishers can't afford to do a correlation, leaving educators there to guess on whether they are addressing the standards.

This creates a worst of both worlds scenario. Materials are written to standards but articulating how they are correlated is confusing, time consuming, and expensive.

Moving Forward

Why Would Publishers Support Common Standards? The Upside.

Given this context what is in CCS for publishers? Here are just a few that I can think of. Please add more in comments that I've missed.

A simplified business model. By developing for a national audience costs can be spread over a much larger base. This should both improve profitability at the margin and create pricing pressure saving schools money. A Win-Win.

Technology is changing the game - maintaining links to 50 sets of standards that change on different schedules is daunting and expensive ongoing commitment - particularly when the content itself is becoming more dynamic. Even though databases make this easier there are just too many moving parts to manage.

Playing nice with the major funders - most of the money for materials comes from State and Local budgets. Since CCS comes out of the Governors it makes sense to be at the table.

One of the big publishers will also reap outsized rewards on the testing side. If we move to a common set of standards there will be more standardization of high stakes testing.

Smaller publishers will find it easier to enter the market - niches will grow in size when it becomes easier to break out of regional territories.

The Downside
Don't get out the bubbly just yet. There are some potential downsides that publishers need to be wary of as this change moves through the market.

Self-Publishing by a consortium of states. This is hinted at in the language used to promote the project. Given the major push that open source textbooks have been getting recently there is a high probability that some group of states will begin publishing materials through their university systems. All of the ways that CCS helps publishers would also assist this kind of initiative.

New entrants as barriers to entry get smaller. There is a growing interest in the financial community in education. As we move further into a knowledge based economy education is more important than ever. This can take the form of new products (primarily technology) or in the creation of private schools and on-line academies.

Market disarray leads to a stall in purchasing. Another very real risk is that the confusion that will ensue from all the change will cause local decision makers to just sit on their hands. If the transition takes several years - as I expect it will - then this could be a damper on business already damaged by the recession.

Conclusion

On balance publishers have a lot to gain from Common Core Standards. It makes sense to throw our weight behind this effort in the coming years while making sure we are positioned to compete in an era new entrants and more efficient business models.

Sobering

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:07:13 -0600

Funny and scary at the same time.

J.A. Konrath on the end of print.

HT to Bob Carlton

Schools Out - Work On Your Hula Hoop

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 23:18:36 -0600

School is out in Texas - what will the kids be working on this summer? We can all hope Something like this...

It never ceases to amaze me what the human mind and body can accomplish. Enjoy

ht Ezra Klein

Education Publishing - Why?

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:44:28 -0600

My take away from the first day of the Association of Education Publisher's Content in Context Conference (#ciccon): educators have always needed Education Publishers, but they have never particularly wanted them.

What are you doing at your company to remain necessary in the digital age?

iPad For Education Revisited

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:56:11 -0600

It's been four weeks and my iPad still has that new computer smell. Now that I've been using it in my workflow I wanted to post some additional comments on it's utility in an educational setting.

In general I think my original take holds up well - this is fantastic tool for consuming content, is extremely useful as an outboard content manager, and passable in a pinch as a creation tool (this whole post was written on it).

On a meta level it is truly amazing how natural the "point and do" nature of the touch interface feels. Once you understand the grammar of the device it all just flows. A mouse now feels clunky for most operations other than image processing or massive spreadsheets.

I don't think I will ever buy another laptop - although I will continue to need a desktop/office machine (for a while).

This post is organized in three sections:

Consuming Content
Managing Content
Creating Content

My experience so far has taught me that the pad has very different capabilities in each category and depending on your use your mileage will vary. While I do not have direct experience with an Android pad based on what I've seen of their phones I think my comments will generalize.

Consuming Content

I've been using computers daily since 1983 and the iPad is hands down the best user experience I've ever had when it comes to content consumption. It isn't any one thing - screen size, portability, battery life, Wi-Fi + 3G always on access, multitouch, and a great line up of apps all contribute. New users will find that the temptation to over-consume content is a phase you need to pass through.

On-Line News (RSS)

My daily "newspaper" is now Early Edition - a nifty RSS reader that presents your feeds in newspaper like headlines for scanning. Tap on the heading and get the full article Best of all - just like a newspaper the feeds refresh every day and then disappear. No more opening up the reader after a week away and seeing 500 articles weighing down your conscience. I also scan the New York Times, BBC, NPR, and Newsy (video).

Books

As a straight text reader it is no better or worse than most of the eReaders I've seen. It doesn't work well in direct sunlight but is fine otherwise (I'm writing this on my shaded porch mid-morning with no problems).

I absolutely love the ability to tap on any word and pop the dictionary open, particularly for older books. I'm currently enjoying Grant's memoirs, no small book.

Some people have complained about the weight, and when you are lying on your back in bed it can get a little wearisome. If you are comparing it to a novel it is heavier, but when you compare it to a textbook (or four) it is featherweight. I bought the Apple case and the ability to prop the device up three different ways makes a big difference.

Games

Games are a hoot. Playing iBomber 2 using the accelerometer to angle your flight path just feels right. Fieldrunners is an addicting tower defense game that grew up on the iPhone but is much better in the larger format. Just about any game feels and plays better than on the phone (Mah Jong, Solitaire, Sudoku, etc).

For those of us who have been advocates for game based learning this device opens up a new avenue of exploration. Always on access and location awareness have some particularly interesting applications for augmented reality gaming within a community.

Video

The video wars are real and annoying. As more video goes to HTML5 this is going to wane - but regularly there are blank spaces on my screen where Flash should be. I expect this will be the issue the first competitors latch onto.

But don't be dismayed, there is plenty of video. I just fired up Netflix - being able to watch movies and TV on demand is going to be particularly nice. ABC has an app that streams their content over 3G. YouTube already worked just fine on the iPhone so no worries there.

And video is gorgeous. I'm actually looking forward to my next long flight!

Implications for Education:

Devices like the iPad will change how content is shaped and delivered. Portable true multimedia delivery with the power of databases on the backend is the leap we have been aiming towards for 30 years. That day has arrived.

As a replacement for textbooks this is a lightweight wonder. It should open up a wave of creative innovation for multimedia instructional content with real time formative assessment (via game-like experiences).

I know this sounds like hyperbole - but remember that as a tech veteran I was skeptical and planning on holding out for a generation or two - until I got my mitts on one for 24 hours. So many of the barriers to real multimedia in the classroom and beyond just melt away with devices like these.

Price is going to be the final frontier manufacturers will have to cross - then Katy bar the door. Your old publishing paradigm will not survive.

Managing Content

I've been using Things on my Mac to manage action items for myself and my team for a few months now. This friendly GTD manager has improved my effectiveness as a manager by an order of magnitude. The iPad and iPhone versions have allowed me to take it mobile and capture and assign action items on the fly (instead of transcribing them after a meeting).

I'm finding the triumvirate of devices isn't redundant, and having them linked and synced is a huge boost. There are some places I only have my phone, the pad is my choice for meetings, and my Mac is best at my desk.

My only beef at this point is that as with any evolving tech not all features are on all devices. Most notably the ability to assign an item to someone only works on the Mac. It is still infinitely easier to just drag it over their name once I've synced than transcribing it, so it isn't a show stopper. I'm assuming this will be resolved in an upcoming release.

Email works seamlessly - I connect to both IMAP and Exchange servers on my nine email accounts and everything is going smoothly. With the iWork suite installed ($30 for word processing, spreadsheet, and presentations) I have access to almost any attachment.

Integrated calendaring is wonderful - and having it synced with the desktop and phone is just as useful here as it is with my to do lists.

Both email and calendar are great examples of apps that have a high utility on my phone but which benefit from the larger screen of the pad. iPhoto also falls into this camp. As a general rule when you are managing stuff more screen improves usability.

Implications for education

Students have always been challenged to manage information - schedules and homework assignments in particular. Teachers face an even more daunting info management task as they juggle assignments, rosters of students (and their families), state and district standards, and instructional materials.

The iPad will be a real boost for both groups. At a basic level it will make automating and interacting with complex data much easier. Blackboard's demo of their iPad app shows how this can work.

But most importantly I believe it will make it easier to make connections and use information in on-line databases at the teachable moment. With 3G you can dig into your stuff anywhere at the moment of need.

Sure you can do most of this on your phone today - but after three years the scrunched over squinty stare at my phone is wearing thin. The iPad provides much more natural and human scale interaction.

Creating Content

The iPad is an imperfect content creation device, at least without a couple of additional tools. For short bursts of writing, photo editing, and simple drawing is performs admirably. More complex tasks can become a chore.

Admittedly my facility with the interface is still evolving and I've been so bowled over by the consumption and management tools that I have not done a ton of creation yet. My take on this could be quite different in six months.

Don't believe the hype about touch typing on this device - you might be able to make it work but I've reverted to a two finger hunt and peck style. The speed I get with this approach is similar to thumb typing on a Blackberry and is quite acceptable, but it is about half of what I can do with a keyboard.

I have found when taking detailed notes in meetings that an external Bluetooth keyboard is essential. I think this will also make it possible for me to travel without my laptop. For walking around a show floor I'll just need the pad - if I'm back in my room writing a blog post I'll be on the keyboard. (For the record this whole post was written without the keyboard.) No more paper notepad for me.
I think I will probably never buy another laptop. I'll have a full blown system at my desk for big tasks and my mobile tasks will be shared between the iPad and iPhone.

Implications for Education

We will still need computers in schools for content creation. If kids are writing a couple of paragraphs or using a worksheet a pad will suffice. At the primary grades a pad may be all that is needed. As the assignments get more complex students will need access to a variety of devices including full blown computers.

Ironically it is quite possible that pad computing will bring back the computer lab. As kids dash between classes juggling assignments, doing just-in-time research, and taking notes the highly mobile pad will rule. When it comes time to write a 5 page paper, delve into a complex set of scientific data, or draw an image existing platforms will have a role.

Over time this may change. The fate of scientific workstations may hold a cautionary tale for PCs (all flavors). Initially the workstations held their own and even flourished as low cost PCs flooded the market. The specialized hardware, large monitors, and data crunching capabilities had a place and earned a huge premium. But eventually Moore's Law caught up with them as PCs rivaled their specs. Poof they went to a niche of a niche.

In Summary

After a few weeks of steady use I'm convinced that pad computing will change the face of educational publishing.

The most immediate impact will be in instructional materials as publishers scramble to take advantage of the new interface. As a buyer I would move carefully in this environment - there are likely to be a few dead ends as we collectively discover the best uses of the new tech. Find those places where the impact will be the greatest and start there.

A second wave of benefits will come when the SIS and Data Warehouse folks design easy to use interfaces for their systems. Since most of these are web based already this isn't that big a technical leap - but it is a huge user interface challenge.

But the huge payoff will come when students can create and manage their content on these devices. Interactive wiki like textbooks, vast video libraries, and student portfolios should have a new and more usable place in teaching and learning.

That is - when the price comes down. Which it will.

Get ready.